Harmonic-Anharmonic Transition in Disaccharides/H2O Mixtures by EINS

This work furnishes new experimental findings on glass-forming systems, i.e. homologues disaccharides (trehalose, maltose, sucrose)/H2O mixtures obtained by using elastic incoherent neutron scattering. Such a technique allows to characterize the different degree of "strength" of the investigated systems by means of the analysis of both the elastic intensity and the mean square displacement behaviours as a function of temperature and Q. The better cryptoprotectant effectiveness of trehalose in comparison with the other disaccharides is ascribed to lower fragility of the matrix in which biostructures are immersed, i.e. of the trehalose/water mixture.